Letter 4
Ciao Dude!!!
With this letter I'm sending you some more pictures of my travel to Jordan. Of course, as I'm used to do, I'm going to write some lines under each picture, so you can know something about what you see in the picture.
Ciao
Franz
With this letter I'm sending you some more pictures of my travel to Jordan. Of course, as I'm used to do, I'm going to write some lines under each picture, so you can know something about what you see in the picture.
Ciao
Franz
Jerash - The Cardus Maximus: During the Roman Empire, in Jordan, was built one of the most important commercial cities of all the empire. The name of this city was Gerassa. After thousand years, its name was changed by the population that still lived in this area, and now it's called Jerash. This city, after its end, was covered by the sand brought by the storms, and it almost vanished. Thanks to this, it came to our days almost perfectly on shape. Now many works are still going on. The government placed fences where there were the old walls of the city, just to prevent what happened in many other places of Jordan, that means, that many hotels companies built their hotels without caring where they were doing it. So you can see wonderful landscapes spoiled with some terrible hotel standing in the middle. Here no one will build anything in the wrong place. So, the city, slowly is coming back to its wonderfulness. As soon as you get into the city, from the southern gate, you get into the "Forum" (the main square) and soon later you'll walk down the "Cardus Maximus" the main street. On the side of the street, you'll see what remains from many ancient shops. Walking here, make you feel like stepping deep into the history, but this time you aren't reading it on a school book, but you're into the middle of it!!! In more, as Italian, I was really amazed to see something like this in a such far place.
Jerash - The Nymphs Temple: As soon as you'll cross the half of the Cardus Maximus, you'll see on your left the "Ninfeo" (the temple of the Nymphs, the water fates). This building is what remains of the best water enginery of the Romans. This temple, in the ancient past, was like a really great fountain and in the middle there were two ponds. One was really big, while the second, was looking like a pot (you can see it into the middle of the picture). In every niche you could see statues of women. Water was flowing on their body, like a liquid skin. The same water flowed into the bigger pond and filled it. When it reached the top of the border, it flowed along the wall, again flowing over it like its skin and not just jumping down. In the middle the water was also collected into the smaller pond. The water that flowed down the wall, was collected into two small artificial rivers that flew on the two opposite ways of the Cardus Maximus. The ceiling of this place was made of shattered glass that with the sun, it gave different colors to the water. After the beginning of the Cristian Era, once a year, in honor of the "Cana miracle" of the water turned into wine by Jesus, the water of this fountain was tanned into red, to make it look like wine. I think that this place is wonderful, but in past it should have been really amazing!!!
Jerash the Northern Theater: In this city you can also see two different theaters. This picture was taken into the Northern theater, smaller one. This theater was also used as a council for the politicians of that time. It's interesting to see that on many seats there's still carved the name of the people that should seat there!!! Both theaters are still perfectly kept and are still used on summer for some festivals. It was wonderful to seat there. It felt like it should come people out of the stages from a moment or the other :-)!!! While we were into the southern theater, the bigger one, we were curious to know how the sound could be at that time. I was with my friend, other two couples, and an old guy. His wife was with other people that didn't want to climb sides, where the seats were. While we were there, we had an idea to know how to hear voices from the stage... We waited that the old man's wife walked on the stage and we called her asking to say something. She was terribly shy to speak... On the end she screamed to her husband to stop play the fool!!! Thank you, the voice sounded really perfectly in that place!!!
Betania Bejond the Jordan - Where the Holy Baptism was: In the Jordan valley, just a few kilometers far from the Dead Sea, there's a place called Betania. This place isn't much famous for those that didn't read carefully the holy Gospels. Here it's where Jesus went looking for John the Baptist and also had his own baptism. Now the Jordan river doesn't flow anymore in the same place were it was flowing at the Jesus time, but it's about two hundred meters far from there. In this picture you can see the exact place where Jesus had his baptism. It's this small place with roof that you can see. It looks like the first Christians that came here to have their own baptism left a stone with carved that there was the right place. In our time, it looks like someone tries to change the history to his own will, and also Israel tried to do it. In fact, feeling a good "baptism-business", Israel decided to build a resort on its side of the Jordan river, in order to call people having baptism on their side, saying that Jesus was there. Few years ago, when the Pope K. Woitla came to Jordan, he declared that in the Gospels there's written that Jesus crossed the Jordan river to reach "Betania beyond the Jordan river" to have his own baptism. So, the right place is in Betania, in Jordan, in the place you can see in the picture.
Betania Bejond the Jordan - The new baptism place: In Betania, not much far from the real place of the baptism of Jesus, there's a small orthodox Church. It's almost on the Jordan river. Here it's the place where people are coming to have their second baptism. In this picture you can also see the Jordan river flowing. It looks dirty, but it's just soil brought in the river after the strong storm that happened the previous day. I just want to say that it's really hard to explain how it feels to be on the same place, that you studied that also Jesus was. It's unbelievable.
The Dead Sea: In the same day that I was in Betania, I also came to the Dead Sea. This is the deepest place on Earth and, when you're there, it's funny to think about it. The sea has about the 30% of salt in it and it makes it very salty ;-)!!! Before going there, many people told me that, when you're there, it feels like swimming into the syrup (now I know that they weren't there). It's not true. Water feels like the sea one. But here you can't sink... You just stay on the surface!!! It's unbelievable!!! The best is to lay on your back. In fact, if you swim laying on your belly, first you'll have water into your eyes, and that it burns terribly!!! And then, you'll feel your head going down and your feet up. So, it's much easier to lay on your back and relax.
Aquaba - Watching to Eilat: This picture was taken the last day of my travel. On the morning it looked like a really beautiful day :-)!!! But then, soon later, came a really strong sand storm. It was so strong that our airplane couldn't land in Aquaba. We waited several hors, but then it was decided that we had to go with pullman to Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt!!! We started our journey already knowing that it'd be a really messy travel. We first had to travel through Israel and here it was the worst thing. We were welcomed in typical Israeli way. They stopped our pullmans 100 meters far from the border. We had to walk all the way with our luggage and with them pointing their machine-guns on us. After it, we were checked one after the other. I was so angry for that nazi-like behavior. All the time pointing their rifles on us, we had to walk, one by one, being asked the most idiotic questions, asking to check every smaller thing in our luggage. A girl was brought almost to the tears because they kept asking where her name came from. Any time she answered, they kept on saying, "You're lying, tell us the truth"!!! Then it was my time. I crossed the metal detector, nothing on me. I already declared my small knife into my bag and they seen it with the x-rays, but they stopped my backpack. They ordered me to open it, I just unlocked the opening and gave it back saying "Now it's all yours. Have nice fun". They took out my sweater, and then, my keffiah... Hmmm... This wasn't much funny for them... In fact, my Keffiah, has the Palestinian-friendly colors!!! The lady looked at me and I smiled her back (I'm ugly sometimes. But I don't match with guys pointing their rifles on me). Then she found two books inside and threw them out of the bag. A guy, a friend of mine asked me what was going on and I said something like "She's excited, she found something that she never seen before... A book". After me, the guy my friend was stopped because suspect of "smuggling drug" (the Israeli lady used some chemicals on his every and each item in his bags looking for drug traces). Soon later we were allowed to have passport control. My friend reminded me to ask to not put a stamp on my passport. In fact, many countries doesn't recognize Israel as a state and if you have an Israeli stamp on your passport, you're not allowed to enter into the other states. So, when I got to the passport control gate, I told to the two girls "Please, no stamps". This is a common question in Israel, but the two of them, decided to play the hard line, and they asked "Why?", my answer was "I want to go to Syria" (again the "ugly Franz" came out to the surface). In fact, Syria doesn't recognize Israel like a state, but an "abusive occupation". The two girls looked upset (Maybe was it better if I said that I'm planning to go to my-most-hated-place Iran?). They asked me "How long you'll stay in Israel?" and my answer was "As less as I can" they looked like having fun and asked again why and again I answered smiling "I'm only crossing here to get to Egypt, which is a nice place, you know?". So, as a revenge, they started to check very carefully my passport. They wasted ages to count how many stamps I have on it (I've many). It was funny their face when they got to the page with the Polish stamps (I've about 10 in the same page). I expected some silly question on that page, and I also thought some acid answer, but they didn't... Too bad... In the end, I was left to go. We traveled for about 15 minutes through Israel (It looks like a garden. All is scary perfect... It feels like being into a Theme Park). It felt so much different from being into Jordan. Before we were feeling the "real life" and people were enjoying their lives. Here all is far too much "cared", and those people with guns and rifles make you remind that that's a not relaxed situation. After this short Israel crossing, we got to the next frontier. Here it was almost like the first one, rifles and machine guns aimed on us walking with our luggage, but this time they didn't check any item on us. Again I asked to not put any stamp on the passport. Again they wasted time reading again my passport. Maybe I could print it and sell it in Israel... It could turn into a bestseller!!! Seen how much interest those people had on it... My friend whispered to me "I always said that you look like a terrorist!". It was sunset when we got out of Israel. To make 15 minutes of street it took so many hours... Soon we got into Egypt. This time I asked for a stamp on my passport!!! As soon as we passed the frontier, we took a new pullman and we started our travel through the Sinai. We crossed all the mountains and on the end we got to Sharm El Sheikh. From here we took our plane to Italy. In spite of all the messes in the last day, the travel was wonderful, and I hope that my next travel will be as beautiful as this one was :-)!!!
For now it's all. I really hope that with this short diary, I shown you what we seen and what we felt in this travel. I also hope that you enjoyed reading this diary as much as I did writing it.
Ciao
Franz
Ciao
Franz